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Saturday, December 7, 2013

Whatcom County GE 2013 Wrap Up: Who Voted and Who Didn't: Part I

This post is long, wonky, has SQL console output formatted in small print and is generally ugly. On most browsers you can you use the keystrokes CTRL + to zoom out. Click to enlarge the graphs. Standard caveat for all my data is that I do my best to ensure accuracy. I don't recommend quoting or using my work unless you verify it first with your own analysis. I don't recommend reading this unless these types of numbers matter to you. - RMF

Many precincts showed high turnout percentages in hte 2013 General Election.

This chart ranks precincts by lack of participation or the inverse of turnout. Some important Democratic precincts showed abysmal turnout percentages indicative of either (your choice): apathy, vote suppression, or ballot theft.

For my $10, I received a 12.03.2013 voter database history from the fine folks that work the election desk downtown; one of a number I have collected this year as I ponder whether or not to run for the 42nd LD Senate seat. If nothing else, my skillsets in PostgresSQL are improving. Here we go into the data.INTO THE DATA69,676 ballots were successfully counted in this years general election from a registered voting base of 127,242 as of 10/29/2013; the last official (e.g. non-provisional) day to register to vote. Here are the queries for those totals:

Select count(registrationnumber) from voterdb where registrationdate::date < '10/29/2013'; count-------- 127242(1 row)Select VotingMethoddesc_1,BallotCounted_1,Count(*) from voterdb where ballotcounted_1 LIKE '1' Group BY VotingMethoddesc_1,BallotCounted_1ORDER BY COUNT DESC; votingmethoddesc_1 | ballotcounted_1 | count----------------------+-----------------+------- Voted by Mail Ballot | 1 | 69658 Provisional Voter | 1 | 1857,180 registrants who could have had their votes counted did not. Here's a look at why they were not:

THE PRECINCTS: GOOD, BAD, AND UNEVEN?
For the next queries, I create a series of views (tables) and join them to get the percentages for the 20 precinct with the highest turnouts and the 20 precincts with the highest (not) turning out. To simplify my query, I discarded all provisional and challenged votes (total 772 votes) and use only successfully returned or not returned ballots:

Create View Not_Returned ASSelect PrecinctID,VotingMethoddesc_1,Count(RegistrationNumber) As NotReturn from voterdbWhere VotingMethoddesc_1 LIKE 'Mail Ballot Issued but not Returned' Group BY VotingMethoddesc_1,PrecinctID;Create View Voted_by_Mail ASSelect PrecinctID,VotingMethoddesc_1,Count(RegistrationNumber) As Voted from voterdbWhere VotingMethoddesc_1 LIKE 'Voted by Mail Ballot' Group BY VotingMethoddesc_1,PrecinctID;Create View Joined AS Select Voted_by_Mail.PrecinctID,Voted_by_Mail.Voted,Not_Returned.NotReturn,((Not_Returned.NotReturn + Voted_by_Mail.Voted))As Total from Voted_by_Mail,Not_ReturnedWHERE Voted_by_Mail.PrecinctID = Not_Returned.PrecinctID;13 of the top twenty precincts are Bellingham 200 series precincts.In fact, the top 64 Whatcom County precincts all had turnout of more than 60%.Select PrecinctID,(Voted::float4 / Total::float4) * 100 as PCT_Voted FROM Joined ORDER BY PCT_VOTED DESC LIMIT 20; precinctid | pct_voted------------+------------------ 261 | 76.7241358757019 180 | 76.104748249054 251 | 75.2639532089233 164 | 72.7999985218048 264 | 72.7397263050079 250 | 72.6190447807312 210 | 72.4880397319794 260 | 71.9387769699097 222 | 71.9042658805847 265 | 69.9472784996033 144 | 69.767439365387 138 | 69.7402596473694 214 | 69.4942891597748 215 | 68.8976407051086 234 | 67.9408133029938 243 | 67.1852886676788 303 | 66.7994678020477 232 | 66.7948722839355 167 | 66.6666686534882 173 | 66.380786895752(20 rows)Precinct maps can be found here for Bellingham and here for 'unincorporated' parts of Whatcom County. Essentially, the 200 series precincts define Bellingham and the 100 series define county areas outside of Bellingham. There are 178 precincts in all that include 300, 500, 600, 700, and 800 series. The 300 - 800 series precincts represent the small cities in Whatcom County. Full maps can be found here. That being said, turnout for the 200 series precincts seems (visually) to be more uneven than 100 series in turnout:

UNDER PERFORMING?
The top five under performing precincts are a mystery to me. I have ranked these precincts in turnout inverse or precinct votes NOT returned. The three WWU precincts (245, 252, 253) and the two Lummi precincts (133,137) had 68 - 80 percent of their precinct votes not returned or not counted. The next eight 'under performing' precincts are all 200 series (Bellingham) precincts.